It may not be on their minds as they walk down the aisle in Massachusetts, but along with gifts and toasts many gay couples are finally getting one of the biggest benefits of matrimony: the ability to obtain a clean divorce.
Because their unions were not legally binding, gay couples have had few protections when they split and have had to rely on the inconsistent mercy of judges to obtain alimony, parental rights or a stake in the couple's finances.
"The single most important thing you get with marriage is divorce, a predictable process by which property is divided, debt is apportioned and arrangements are made for custody and visitation of children," said Jo Ann Citron, a Boston lawyer researching a book on same-sex breakups called The Gay Divorcee.
Especially when children are involved, courts in liberal-leaning states such as Massachusetts, California and Washington have been increasingly willing to apply the principles of divorce laws to same-sex breakups.
But in more conservative states such as Texas and Virginia, judges have been loath to do anything that would confer marital-like standing on same-sex couples, even when partners have drawn up detailed contracts.
"The situation right now has created horror stories, where people put an awful lot of ... equity into property and into a life together, never held title to anything and got nothing," Citron said.
The clearest benefits will be for those who earn less than their same-sex partners, said Frederick Hertz, a real estate lawyer in Oakland, California, who has developed a lucrative specialty resolving legal disputes among the San Francisco Bay area's relatively affluent gay population.
Hertz recently represented a lesbian who had become a stay-at-home mother while her girlfriend climbed the corporate ladder. When they split up, the employed partner refused to include stock options among their joint assets.
"We got a decent settlement, but decent compared to nothing, not decent compared to what she would have gotten had they been married," Hertz said. "Access to marriage may level that playing field."
Gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts on Monday under a landmark ruling by the state's highest court. Vermont has granted spousal rights to gay couples with civil unions since 2000, making it the only other state where gays and lesbians are treated the same as married couples for the purposes of divorce.
In California, a law scheduled to take effect Jan. 1 would give the state's 25,000 couples registered as domestic partners access to family court proceedings when their relationships end.
"At the present time it is a very mixed sort of picture," said Art Leonard, a professor at New York Law School who monitors court rulings involving gays.
Couples who drafted agreements with a lawyer's help may be able to provide courts with rules to interpret. But problems arise when "they are just living together," Leonard said. "There is basically nothing there as far as a legal framework."
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS